Modern battlefield scenarios require knowledge of the present position of tactical land vehicles. This knowledge is essential for maximizing vehicle survivability through rapid mobility.
Indirect fire mobile weapons systems such as mobile howitzers and missile launchers require accurate weapons pointing and present position data due to the range of their targets.
Other vehicles such as, for example, direct fire mobile weapons systems, resupply vehicles and transport vehicles also benefit from present position data, although the same is not needed with the accuracy required by other vehicles, as aforenoted.
Accordingly, the present invention provides relatively low cost, moderate accuracy land navigation capability for tactical vehicle applications such as fast attack vehicles, transport vehicles, resupply vehicles, robotic vehicles and the like.
The invention further provides relatively low cost backup heading and land navigation capability for mobile weapons systems and the like which already have relatively high cost, precision heading and navigation capability.
The invention features a single axis (azimuth) system which provides two-dimensional universal transverse mercator (UTM) coordinates (northings and eastings). The system uses a single degree of freedom gyroscope (gyro) used in both north seeking and navigational (directional gyro) modes. Simple level sensors rather than complicated accelerometers are used for tilt measurement, whereby excessive gimballing is eliminated. Temperature compensation is achieved through temperature modelling, i.e. thermistors rather than temperature controlling with high power requirements.